Been a long time since I've heard from him, and almost as long since he posted last. I hope his health is not the reason for his absence. He use to post every once in a while on www.GPz550.com, but I haven't seen him there either. I have senthim e-mails without any replies.

Just concerned.

Corey

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GPz550 Race Bike Stuff:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v97/CoreyClough/Track%20Bike%202009/

GPz550 Pictures of Stuff I've Done:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v97/CoreyClough/Coreys%20GPz550%20Pics/

YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CoreyDSFA

Corey
San Francisco, CA (The Straight Part)
AFM #944

Thanks, Corey. If I got email from you, my memory issues would be why I haven't replied. Sorry about that. :/

Yes, health issues have had me more or less hanging up my helmet. I am really trying to get these parts made, and that should connect me with the motorcycling world again.

You bet your ass I wish I could have come along. Next time you are going to do something like that, I'll be happy to tag along if you have the room.

Mostly what I've been doing with my time when I'm up to doing things in general is Amateur radio, mainly working foreign DX on HF (shortwave) bands. At least I can travel the world with radio waves, even if I won't get there physically. ;) My callsign is currently AF6ME, for those interested or who know anything about ham radio.

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| 1990 Kawasaki Zephyr 615 (Daphne) -=- 1986 Kawa Ninja 250 (stolen) |
| The Motorcycle Fuel Injection Handbook -=- http://tinyurl.com/297abo |

S'funny, I did my one and only track day at Shannonville back when I worked for a Ducati shop in Ithaca, NY.

I don't think I will be getting well any time soon, but thanks. I've been sick for, what, 5 years now? 6? I just hope they figure fibromyalgia out one of these days. It'd be hard enough getting back into my career after most or a decade off, but I'm also over 40 now, which will make it all the harder. I'd settle for staying on SSDI and not getting any sicker than I am now, but I don't know how likely the latter really is.

Hopefully I'll have the Bassani collars and spigots done around the same time as the caliper adapter brackets, so maybe you can feel what a REAL Bike with a 550 mill can do. :D ;)

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| 1990 Kawasaki Zephyr 615 (Daphne) -=- 1986 Kawa Ninja 250 (stolen) |
| The Motorcycle Fuel Injection Handbook -=- http://tinyurl.com/297abo |

You should talk to my friend in Oakland, Mikie Leister. He pwned Super Dino for a long time riding a GPz. His race bike, in fact, is in my garage right now, waiting for me to restore it. He might have some useful insights for you, and you know I have a lot of secret weapon parts, like the big non-US spec carbs. ;) I think Mikie has my slotted cam sprockets somewhere, or he might have put them in with the parts boxes when he brought all his bikes up here to be sold, parted, or what have you (I am preserving the race bike, because I'm silly like that). You'd love the Zephyr with the Bassani on it... It sounds incredible and makes excellent power. If I can get the spigots and half-moons made for the Bassani, that bike can be put back on the road again. Aftershocks suspension front and rear, my own big-bore blueprinted motor, pods and custom jetting, +5 ignition advance, 4-pot Nissins in the front (coming very soon!)... Might be fun to take it for a ride. If the timing is right I might trailer that bike and my baby Ninja down to the Bay this summer for a little more great riding while I still can. Perhaps we'll see you then.

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| 1990 Kawasaki Zephyr 615 (Daphne) -=- 1986 Kawa Ninja 250 (stolen) |
| The Motorcycle Fuel Injection Handbook -=- http://tinyurl.com/297abo |

Hey, I'm just smart about these things because I've been here longer and more fell on my head and stayed there. And I have more parts because I'm a pack rat and save things that I don't know what they are, but they turn out to be rare or important or something. Engineer savant. :D

I'd thought that AFM allowed any engine mods you wanted if you kept the stock carbs, airbox and exhaust, but maybe that was just in the regular classes. If you can gear the bike so that it can be run up to redline in all the important places, the '86 configuration (big, non-US carbs with ZX cams and pistons) would give the most top-end power at the expense of a little midrange, I believe. And the nice thing about the non-US carbs is that they work with the stock airbox and intake books, and there are no visible indications that the carbs are any different from the 85 carbs, except for a tiny cast-in number that it is almost impossible to find and see, and just about no one knows about. Aside from that they are visually identical and you'd need vernier calipers to tell them apart from the US spec 85 carbs. Secret weapon, you get another 2mm carb bore for a little extra juice up top. ;) I'm sure someone will need them one of these days...

Did you listen to the YouTube video for the Bassani with a decent set of speakers? I was floowed, at proper idle speed the bike sounds like a literbike idling. Gotta love pipes that do all their pulse tuning with huge tubes for nearly no back-pressure but huge anti-reversion steps so you get the best of all worlds, and the sound of a giant engine that rattles boots at stoplights. ;) I'll be interested to see what that pipe does on the dyno once I have the fittings put together (it was the earliest version I have seen of a quick-release pipe mounting, but it used a stub that bolted to the head with the stock clamp and then the header pipe slipped between two thin walls at the end of each stub; the pipe was kept from moving out of the slots toward the front of the bike by the bolt holding the muffler section to the right peg bracket. Unfortunately everything was made out of mild steel and 20 years down the road the stubs were either missing or nearly permanently fused in place by rust. And since you need to remove the header to change the oil filter (true equal-length header pipes and more cornering clearance with this design than any other GPz exhaust I have ever seen), I decided I needed to come up with a similar but improved mechanism to get the pipe to stay on the bike and not leak exhaust gases. Now I just have to have them machined up... Why oh why can't I get a machine shop to give me a quote that's not ridiculous, or give me a quote at ALL (Most places never answer the email; one place did but quoted me a price for the stub parts, made of aircraft aluminum and stainless or ChroMoly steel, nothing exotic, that would have bought me a 4-1 titanoium race system from Japan with a carbon can. Um, no!

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| 1990 Kawasaki Zephyr 615 (Daphne) -=- 1986 Kawa Ninja 250 (stolen) |
| The Motorcycle Fuel Injection Handbook -=- http://tinyurl.com/297abo |

You likely do have me beat on spares. :) I only stripped two bikes and had parts that were roughly another 2 bikes' worth. I did strip a complete Zephyr, and boy that went fast as parts! Always on the lookout for more parts 550s to build my stock up with, especially Zephyrs.

Interesting that Brian Daigle didn't make the stubs to be quick-release like the stockers, considering he has a bike with a Bassani on it. There's no way to remove the oil filter without pulling the whole exhaust with the Bassani, so without slip-fit stubs, you need 4 exhaust gaskets for each oil change. Yuck! I definitely want to complete my design and get it made up and working. If you talk to Brian any time soon, let him know I'm more than willing to pay him to make up a set to my specs, and if he wants to use the design for his own needs once we confirm it works as it ought to, he's more than welcome. I really want the Zephyr back on the road. As nice as the Ninja is, I miss the hell out of my baby.

Not sure if the AFM rules have changed or if my memory is faulty. ;) Definitely one of the two...

In 1986, Canada and parts of the rest of the world got a GPz550, whereas 1985 is the last model year for America. These bikes came with the same make and model of carb that were visually identical to the "thru '85" ones, but were 2mm larger in bore, meaning more top-end power with a slight loss of fuel economy. Might be a nice "cheater" to use while racing. ;)

Which video link for the Bassani? There's another one besides the one I put up on YouTube? The Bassani design is genius, and it allows him to get more effect from tuned lengths, less backpressure than open headers, and less noise than all of the above in one simple package. I'm hugely excited to see what sort of power it can make. It ought to be able to make much more aggressive cam profiles work with the Zephyr's big carbs. With pods and a better than stock exhaust, I have been having huge trouble getting the Zephyr to behave well in the fueling department, especially part throttle around 3-5k rpm, IIRC. Why? Intake and exhaust resonating with engine speed. So in this case, I have a huge rich spot at the problem point (3-5k, part throttle) that I cannot cure -- anything that helps much makes the bike too lean to rideat any other point in the load/speed matrix. The Bassani should take care of a lot of that for me -- time will tell...

Werkstatt is a great place and has great, knowledgable staff with the right tools (Factory Pro dyno). I don't think you can go from there!

I'm jealous that you're racing. :p I wouldn't even be able to crew the pit for any factory or first-string privateer with how sick I am, but I could probably crew for folks who are not in quite so much of a rush. :D Let me know if you have room for another lunatic in the RX-7; if you don't mind picking up the gas tab, I have a Ford F-150 that can pull a small trailer with a race bike and spared. In fact, I even have the trailer (3-rail) w/lots of straps plus a full bed-width aluminum folding ramp. :D

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| 1990 Kawasaki Zephyr 615 (Daphne) -=- 1986 Kawa Ninja 250 (stolen) |
| The Motorcycle Fuel Injection Handbook -=- http://tinyurl.com/297abo |